Follow us on social

Signal-2022-10-12-160321_001

New White House reports suggest diplomacy isn’t a four-letter word after all

Jake Sullivan has been reportedly talking to Russians for months, and the administration wants Zelensky to keep channels with Putin open.

Analysis | Europe

After denying for months that it would encourage Ukraine to negotiate with Russia, the Biden administration has begun pushing Kyiv to publicly signal that it’s open to talks, according to the Washington Post.

The goal of the effort, according to the Post’s sources, is to assuage growing fears in the West that Ukraine has abandoned any hope for negotiations with Russia, opting instead for a “total victory” strategy that some worry could drag on for years. Those concerns have increased in recent months as the war has helped push inflation in the United States and created the possibility of a gas shortage in Europe during the winter.

The sources denied that the administration’s intent is to get Kyiv to start talking with Moscow in the short term.

Meanwhile, National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan has held several secret meetings with Russian President Vladimir Putin’s top foreign policy aides in recent months, according to the Wall Street Journal. These behind-the-scenes conversations have been aimed at reducing the chance of dangerous escalation in Ukraine and have not included talk of diplomacy to end the conflict, according to the Journal’s sources.

The pair of revelations come just two weeks after Democratic establishment figures attacked congressional progressives for signing on to a letter calling for greater diplomatic engagement with Russia. Though the letter’s signatories were forced to retract it under pressure, this weekend’s news suggests that the Biden administration may be more sympathetic to the progressives’ message than many influential figures in the Democratic Party have been.

The news also signals that President Joe Biden and his team are feeling the heat from the growing pro-diplomacy movement in the Global South, which has so far borne the brunt of the conflict’s impact on humanitarian aid, food security, and inflation.

U.S. officials continue to contend that they will not push Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky into talks, and “they believe that Zelensky would probably endorse negotiations and eventually accept concessions, as he suggested he would early in the war,” according to the Post.

When could those talks actually start? As soon as this winter, according to the Post: “They believe that Kyiv is attempting to lock in as many military gains as it can before winter sets in, when there might be a window for diplomacy.”


National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan (via Reuters)
Analysis | Europe
Nuclear missile
Top image credit: Zack Frank

Put this nuclear missile on the back of a truck — but we still don't need it

Military Industrial Complex

Last week, analysts from three think tanks penned a joint op-ed for Breaking Defense to make the case for mobilizing the Sentinel intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) program, a pivot from one exceedingly costly approach to nuclear modernization to another.

After Sentinel faced a 37 percent cost overrun in early 2024, the Pentagon was forced to inform Congress of the cost spike, assess the root causes, and either cancel the program or certify it to move forward under a restructured approach. The Pentagon chose to certify it, but not before noting that the restructured program would actually come in 81 percent over budget.

keep readingShow less
Maduro, Trump
Top photo credit: Venezuela President Nicolas Maduro (Shutterstock/stringerAL) ; President Donald Trump (Shutterstock/a katz)

Why we need to take Trump's Drug War very seriously

Latin America

Donald Trump has long been a fan of using the U.S. military to wage a more vigorous war against drug cartels in Latin America. He also shows signs of using that justification as a pretext to oust regimes considered hostile to other U.S. interests.

The most recent incident in the administration’s escalating antidrug campaign took place on October 3 when “Secretary of War” Mike Hegseth announced that U.S. naval forces had sunk yet another small boat off of the coast of Venezuela. It was one of four destroyed vessels and a total of 21 people killed since late September. The administration claims they were all trying to ship illegal drugs to the United States.

keep readingShow less
Israel Gaza deal
Top photo credit: United States and Israel flags are projected on the walls of the Old city of Jerusalem in celebration after Israel and Hamas agreed to the first phase of U.S. President Donald Trump's plan to end the war in Gaza, October 9, 2025. REUTERS/Sinan Abu Mayzer

Will this deal work? Netanyahu has gamed everything his way so far.

Middle East

Two years into the Gaza conflict and perhaps on the cusp of a successful phased ceasefire, what can we say?

On the basis of media reporting about Yahya Sinwar’s strategic rationale for attacking Israel on October 7, 2023, it seems that he believed Israel was on the brink of civil war and that the impact of a large-scale assault would severely erode its political stability. He believed that Hamas’s erstwhile allies, especially Hizballah and Iran, would open offensives against Israel, which, in combination with Hamas’s invasion, would stretch the nation’s military capabilities to the breaking point.

keep readingShow less

LATEST

QIOSK

Newsletter

Subscribe now to our weekly round-up and don't miss a beat with your favorite RS contributors and reporters, as well as staff analysis, opinion, and news promoting a positive, non-partisan vision of U.S. foreign policy.